


Green Eyes

by ozymandias314



Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Hand of Thrawn Duology - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Identity Porn, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:45:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5470271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozymandias314/pseuds/ozymandias314
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flim has an unusual proposition for Pellaeon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flim

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jaclynhyde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaclynhyde/gifts).



When Pellaeon sat down across from Flim for the private guards-free audience Flim had called in every favor he could to achieve, Flim became Thrawn.

Flim was a good actor to begin with, and he’d inhabited Thrawn as few actors had ever inhabited a role. He hardly had to think anymore; a slight shift in the posture, a change in the expression dancing across his face, a quirk to the eyes, a movement of his hands… Of course, the fact that he wasn’t wearing his face paint or contact lenses ruined the illusion-- not to mention the fact that he was in chains and an Imperial prisoner’s uniform-- but Flim almost felt like that improved the sale. This wasn’t something you could get from any two-bit whore willing to dye her skin blue. Flim had value. 

The expression on Pellaeon’s face was gratifying. 

“Thrawn,” Flim said, his intonations impeccably Thrawn’s, “was the love of your life.”

Flim was good at reading people. You had to be, if you were a con artist. But a lot was riding on the brief flash he’d seen across Pellaeon’s face the first time he’d seen Thrawn-- and, to be honest, if Flim had had literally any better options, he wouldn’t have gone with this one. But you played the hand you were dealt. 

Anyway, the look that dawned on Pellaeon's face at those words removed all doubt. 

“I love him,” Pellaeon said, apparently deciding that there was nothing to be lost from honesty. Flim noted the present tense. 

“Did you two ever actually get to fuck?” Flim asked. It was mean, Flim admitted it, to make Pellaeon hear that crude word in Thrawn’s erudite tones. But if you didn’t get to take petty vengeance against the person who put you in prison, who did you get to take petty vengeance against?

Pellaeon didn’t say anything, but the expressions flickering across his face-- shock, anger, despair, yearning-- were as easy to read as a book. 

Flim would have crossed his arms, smug and satisfied; Thrawn merely smiled dreamily, and Pellaeon was cut to the quick. “Thought not.” 

“So here’s the deal,” Flim said, switching back to himself for a moment. “I got used to living in Imperial comfort, and I’ve never been much fond of prisons. So you keep me in the style to which Moff Disra has accustomed me, and”-- in an instant Flim was again Thrawn-- “the love of your life is yours. And he wants you.”

Flim did not mention the useful potential for blackmail. That sort of thing tended, in his experience, to make marks far less enthusiastic. 

“You’re not him,” Pellaeon said. 

Flim waved a hand airily. “And if you were planning on having me direct ship movements, that would matter. I’ve studied every detail of Thrawn’s life, every strangeness of his speech. Disra and Tierce gave me plans, they didn’t give me scripts; that was all improvised. And… it’s not like there’s a whole lot you have to improvise about moaning.” 

\--

The first time they’d had sex, Pellaeon had frozen and stopped before either of them came. Flim mentally shrugged and figured he’d gotten away with all he could. Flim was pretty sure he was happy to be involved in Pellaeon’s epiphany-- “maybe I shouldn’t spend all my time obsessed with an alien who’s been dead for years, maybe I should find a romantic relationship with someone my own species and also alive”, and so on and so forth. Probably it’d be good for the man. He wasn’t a particular fan of the idea of going back into prison, but being in the Supreme Commander’s quarters gave him an opportunity to steal a handful of things to bribe the guards with, so that was all right. 

That evening, Pellaeon called Flim to his room and handed him his glowing red contact lenses. 

“It would,” Pellaeon said, “probably be wise if you did not wear these when we were not alone together. People might come to… unfortunate conclusions.” 

The fact that he would wear them whenever they were alone together went unspoken. 

“And now,” Pellaeon said, “I believe we have some unconcluded business from last night.”

\--

Flim had wondered if Pellaeon wanted some sort of sick psychosexual games. Maybe Pellaeon would want him to lie there and get whipped, while Pellaeon cursed him for losing, for not acknowledging Pellaeon’s contributions or his love, for having the nerve to die. Or maybe Pellaeon would want to suck his cock until he gagged, while Flim humiliated him about surrendering to the Republic, being unable to come up with uses for the cloaking shield as clever as Thrawn’s own, failing to have held the Empire in stewardship until Thrawn’s return. 

But what Pellaeon wanted was so normal it was almost sickening. 

He wanted to go home to Flim. He wanted to talk about his everyday frustrations: with underlings, with the Moffs, with the day-to-day minutiae of running the fleet, with the endless, endless burden of paperwork. He wanted to watch holodramas together while cuddling (he was, for some reason, particularly fond of ones titled things like Passion Taboo and Zeltrons in Love). He wanted to cook dinner together, occasionally elbowing each other when one person’s rice was done steaming the second the other person’s sufar greens were ready to go to the oven. And he wanted sex. 

He never used a name for Flim. He never mentioned the blue skin, the red eyes, the subtle change in every movement. But when Flim dropped the guise for even a moment-- when he, as an experiment, moved like himself instead of Thrawn-- Pellaeon looked as though he were a child and someone had just stabbed his stuffed Wookie in the heart. 

Flim guessed it probably counted as a sick psychosexual game to want to be domestic with your dead boss anyway. 

\--

For a while, Flim had spent his days sleeping, getting drunk, and playing sabaac. In the old days, running cons and smuggling spice and staying two steps ahead of the law, he’d dreamed about long days with plenty of money and nothing to do. As it happens, that was interesting for about two months, at which point Flim became bored and started investigating Bastion’s theatricals. 

Of course he got a starring role. 

On opening night, Pellaeon was in the front row. Flim was so startled he flubbed a line, and although he recovered beautifully his costar still gave him the stinkeye. 

That night, after sex, Flim said in Thrawn’s voice, “you came.”

“I’d have to be an extraordinarily heartless man,” Pellaeon said stiffly, “to miss the opening night of my lover’s show.”

It was ridiculous, of course. Flim was a glorified prostitute, lucky enough to be able to take one customer rather than many. If you have to pretend to be a literal different person the entire time you’re with someone, there are many things you could be called, but that person’s lover is hardly one of them. But still he felt something warm inside him all day. 

\--

On Flim’s home planet, there was a creature called a synectaur. They were cunning creatures who had evolved the ability to make traps; the unwary prey would step in the wrong place and-- snap!-- the synectaur could eat it at its leisure. But when a synectaur grew old or slow, it would forget where exactly it had laid its trap, and the synectaur itself would wind up dangling in the air for scavengers to find. 

Flim had begun to remind himself of a synectaur. 

Pellaeon was kind, was the problem. He was kind, and loyal, and he did his duty, and he cared about his men, and he was trying his best for the Empire, and he had a good heart. Flim had seen the worst of him-- at least, once you’re paying someone to fuck you while pretending to be a dead guy, Flim assumed you didn’t bother to hide any of your other negative traits-- and it was that he loved someone so intensely that he did stupid self-destructive things so that he could have him, at least for a little bit, at least for a while. 

Flim was a con artist from the Outer Rim. Duty and loyalty and love were in short supply. Most people’d shoot you in the gut with a blaster as soon as look at you. 

And so with one thing and another, he had managed to fall in love with a man who was not only a mark, not only the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet, but also hopelessly in love with a dead alien whom Flim was impersonating. 

Pellaeon walked by him as he read the script for his latest play and pressed a kiss into his temple, meant for Thrawn; Pellaeon touched him in the evening with a caress meant for Thrawn; in the morning, Pellaeon sleepily whispered an “I love you” meant for Thrawn. Every time, it felt like someone had shoved a hot knife into Flim’s heart. But he stayed, because the other option was never being kissed by Pellaeon at all. 

It was excruciating. A man pretending to be loved by a man pretending he was someone else.


	2. Pellaeon

When Pellaeon sat down with Flim for the secret meeting he was not entirely sure why he was attending, he found himself face-to-face with Thrawn.

It wasn’t Thrawn, of course. For one thing, Flim was unmistakeably human: his paint and contact lenses had been confiscated, and he was now a fairly pale man with green eyes and sandy brown roots showing under his black-dyed hair. But the way he moved, his face, his eyes-- it was as though Thrawn’s spirit was possessing someone else’s body. 

Pellaeon’s mouth went dry. 

“Thrawn,” Flim said in a voice that if Pellaeon closed his eyes would have been Thrawn’s, “was the love of your life.”

Pellaeon considered an angry denial, storming out, sending Flim to the-- wait, they didn’t have spice mines anymore-- to some sort of brutal slavery to live a short and highly unpleasant life for daring to suggest such a thing. But his voice was Thrawn’s and, even to this day, Pellaeon had never been able to lie to Thrawn. “I love him.”

“Did you two ever actually get to fuck?” Flim asked in Thrawn’s voice, the coarse word sounding odd in Thrawn’s cultured voice.

Pellaeon would have stammered or flushed if he had spoken, and so he stared through Flim in silence. He should have left. If he had known what was good for him, he’d have left the second Flim had shifted into Thrawn. He must be insane, or controlled by a Jedi mind trick, or something. But he did not stand up, he did not walk out. 

A small treacherous part of him whispered this is your only chance to talk to Thrawn ever again. 

Flim smiled dreamily, and it was Thrawn’s smile, and Pellaeon wanted to hit him across the face or kiss him or both. “Thought not.” 

“So here’s the deal,” Flim said in his own voice, and Pellaeon felt disappointed, and felt disappointed in himself for feeling disappointed. “I got used to living in Imperial comfort, and I’ve never been much fond of prisons. So you keep me in the style to which Moff Disra has accustomed me, and”-- in an instant Flim was again Thrawn-- “the love of your life is yours. And he wants you.”

Pellaeon swallowed. He could hear the blood rushing through his head. His brain was making all sorts of reasoned arguments about why this was a terrible idea, starting with “shouldn’t you be thinking about getting over Thrawn at this point? It was pathetic enough when it was alive” and continuing to “this man literally committed treason against the Empire.” But to be honest his brain was not in charge here, and it hadn’t been in charge for a while. 

“You’re not him,” Pellaeon said. The objection felt weak even to his own ears.

Flim waved a hand airily. “And if you were planning on having me direct ship movements, that would matter. I’ve studied every detail of Thrawn’s life, every strangeness of his speech. Disra and Tierce gave me plans, they didn’t give me scripts; that was all improvised. And… it’s not like there’s a whole lot you have to improvise about moaning.” 

\--

Pellaeon did not consider himself sexually inexperienced. He had, after all, made love to three or four female prostitutes-- fantasizing about men the whole time-- on stormtroopers’ nights out, before he was promoted high enough that such a thing would be seen as undignified. And, of course, he had had lovers at the Imperial Academy and on the Emperor’s flagship: furtive delightful handjobs, whispers and kisses on bunks that became sudden silence when anyone walked by. 

There had, of course, been no one since Thrawn. But Pellaeon still felt he understood the principle of the thing.

Flim was something else.

Some of it, of course, was that secrecy was no longer required; being Supreme Commander had its perks, and one of them was a private house with soundproofed rooms. Some of it was that any sex that was the culmination of years of masturbatory fantasies was bound to be intense. But much of it was simply Flim himself. As loath as Pellaeon was to admit it, the man knew what he was doing. 

Flim was halfway through a very pleasant handjob when his hands began to slip down, below Pellaeon’s balls, down to--

“What are you doing?” Pellaeon asked. 

Flim ignored him, spitting on his fingers and then beginning to probe again.

“Trust me, Admiral,” Flim said, and it was Thrawn’s voice and Thrawn’s face and Pellaeon found himself hopeless, helpless, paralyzed with lust, willing to follow wherever he led. 

And then Flim--

Pellaeon had never thought of that as a sexual organ. But Flim worked one of his fingers in and Pellaeon could barely breathe. He felt a sort of burning and stretching feeling in the area itself, and following that waves of pleasure surging through him, leaving him limp on the shore for merely an instant before they battered his body again. He couldn’t think, it was too much, and then a second finger joined the first and Pellaeon felt like he was going to scream.

When the third finger entered him, he did scream. 

He was looking at Pellaeon, smiling that dreamy knowing smile that Thrawn had always smiled, and Pellaeon found himself wondering whether Thrawn had inspected humans’ art to discover that they liked that. He couldn’t imagine that they’d have found it out any other way. And then his fingers twisted and Pellaeon’s hands grabbed the bedsheets and that was the last coherent thought he had for a while. 

The fingers were removed and Pellaeon whimpered at the sudden emptiness, felt the urge to beg for them to come back, but Thrawn had never loved it when someone begged. His legs were pushed over his head, he felt something, a penis, between his legs beginning to probe, and--

“You’re using me like I was a woman,” Pellaeon said.

“No,” and it was Thrawn’s voice, “not a woman, never a woman. A man.” 

And he pushed inside and Pellaeon groaned from the back of his throat, felt like he was Thrawn’s, like they were merging together into a single person, their bodies mingling together, everything he had ever wanted, to touch Thrawn as deeply as he could, to know that they belonged together--

He looked into green eyes. 

Thrawn’s eyes weren’t green. 

Pellaeon froze. Flim seemed to take this as a sign of enjoyment, of being overcome by pleasure, and began to move quicker. “Stop,” Pellaeon said. “This… this isn’t right. You, you may take your leave.”

That night, Pellaeon stared at the ceiling for a long time. 

\--

The war was over, but even so the Supreme Commander sometimes had to travel on a ship; and when he was on a ship, there could be no Flim without awkward questions Pellaeon had no way to answer. Fortunately, Pellaeon had a carefully curated stock of xenophile porn and an hour where he had given strict orders that no one was to bother him.

On the holo, a blue alien was being penetrated very enthusiastically, his face screwed up in pleasure. Pellaeon called up one of his favorite fantasies of Thrawn: the one where Thrawn was so tired after a long day winning battles and killing Rebels, and Pellaeon knew exactly how to help him relax. Originally, of course, it had featured a handjob, but Flim was giving Pellaeon a lot of exciting new material that Pellaeon would return to long after he had come to his senses. 

He imagined working his penis inside of Thrawn’s slick bottom, Thrawn’s eyes closed with pleasure as he moaned “yes, yes, Pellaeon, this is exactly what I need, you know how to make me feel so good, no one can make me feel the way you do.” Pellaeon’s hand moved faster. And then Thrawn would shudder, and his green eyes would open, and-- with a sudden burst Pellaeon came all over his hand. 

On the holo, several tentacles had joined in, writhing around the blue alien and causing him to shake in exquisite pleasure. Pellaeon snapped it off in sudden distaste and went to wash his hands. As he did, his brow wrinkled. Green eyes? Why had he come fantasizing about Thrawn having green eyes?

Pellaeon had not been this confused about his sexuality since someone had told him that most men were interested in touching breasts.

\--

Flim was an extraordinarily good actor. 

Pellaeon had known this, of course. If someone had asked him whether Flim was a good actor, he would have responded “of course, that’s why against my better judgment I am paying him an exorbitant sum of money to impersonate my tragically deceased superior so I can pretend to be making love to him.” But to be quite honest he preferred to not think about it. It broke the illusion that Thrawn had returned in a form which, mysteriously, was bad at tactics and required a lot of face paint. 

Pellaeon had been driven to see Flim’s play by some obscure sense of chivalry, the idea that even if you were paying a man for sex there was no reason to be undignified about it. He’d expected the play to not be very good. It wasn’t. The script was hackneyed, the songs were lousy, and the leading lady seemed to believe that she could make up for her lack of acting ability with cleavage. 

But Flim… when he strutted on stage as the heroic stormtrooper, he wasn’t acting, he simply was. Stale jokes dazzled; absurd plot twists became plausible; at the absurdly tragic ending-- did they have to kill off the six-year-old carrying a blankie, really-- there wasn’t a dry eye in the house; even though Pellaeon couldn’t begin to see what the stormtrooper saw in the leading lady, he believed wholeheartedly in the passion of their love; Flim spoke of the glory of the Empire as though he had lived his life dreaming of dying for it. Pellaeon found himself having a hard time believing that Flim was actually a former con artist and current kept man/professional Thrawn, rather than one of Pellaeon’s own troops who had accidentally wandered onto the stage.

Throughout his life, Pellaeon had loved military men. He had adored nothing more than competence. Thrawn had won his love the first time he quietly predicted that something would happen, and it did. But he wondered if perhaps competence could come in another guise.

\--

Flim wore his face paint to sleep in. This was, Pellaeon noted, a logical outcome of Pellaeon’s preference to sleep with Thrawn rather than with Flim by his side. But it still could not possibly be good for Flim’s skin. Pellaeon noted that he would have to be firm, in the future, that Flim wash it off before he go to sleep.

The paint stayed well on his skin, but a little had rubbed off near his ear, showing the pale skin beneath. Pellaeon felt warm and affectionate at the vulnerability, the small gap in Flim’s perfect facade.

A wise man would have long ago grieved Thrawn, and given him up, and moved on, perhaps as soon as he realized the relationship was not to be, certainly once Thrawn had died. Pellaeon was, obviously, not wise. But his love for Thrawn-- however personally unfortunate and doomed to be eternally unreturned-- was not embarrassing, did not distract from his career, probably made him a better commander because of his yearning, even in death, to make Thrawn proud. He could have chosen more poorly.

He could, for example, have chosen to fall in love with an Outer Rim traitor to the Empire who was only having sex with him because he paid him. To choose a completely hypothetical example.

Flim yawned in his sleep. Pellaeon pulled the covers over him so that he would not get cold, as he often did, then rose to get to work. 

\--

“I can’t do this,” Flim said. “I’m sorry, I thought I could do this, but I can’t.”

Pellaeon blinked. “You volunteered to cook the nerfbergers for dinner,” he said. “If you don’t like the way they came out, you can always order something else.”

Flim threw his head back dramatically. Flim was capable of perfect subtlety when he inhabited a character-- his Thrawn was proof enough of that-- but for some reason when it came to his own gestures he had a taste for the garishly theatrical. Pellaeon loved it, but then Pellaeon had a hard time finding something about Flim that he did not love. “It’s not about the damn nerfbergers,” he said. “It’s about-- argh.”

Pellaeon put aside the correspondence he was reviewing and waited patiently for Flim to explain. 

“I love you,” Flim said. “I am hopelessly, ridiculously in love with you. Not pretending, not as Thrawn. But as myself. Flim. You are kind and generous and handsome and hopelessly romantic even though you pretend not to be and devoted to the Empire and loyal and-- I have no idea what you would see in me or why you would have the slightest urge to fall for a melodramatic con artist who’s still not entirely sure what all those different kinds of ship mean, but.” He waved his hands hopelessly. “Here I am. I love you. And I can’t bear to put up with this anymore. Clap me in irons and throw me in the Imperial prison, honestly, it’s better than living the rest of my life getting touched by the man I love and knowing that it’s all meant for someone else.” 

“I love Thrawn,” Pellaeon said.

Flim threw up his hands. “I know that,” he said. “That is literally my entire problem here.”

“Let me finish,” Pellaeon said. “I love Thrawn-- and I also love you. As you are. Not pretending to be someone you’re not.” He smiled. “With green eyes.”

Flim’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Although I’m quite flattered,” Pellaeon said, the giddiness in his heart rising to his face and causing him to break out in a grin, “that you would apparently rather be clapped in irons than touch me.”

“Ugh!” Flim said. “You know what I meant.”

“Take those lenses off,” Pellaeon said, “and maybe you can show me.” 

\--

A few hours of happy, giggly, loving sex later--

“Okay, but I’m still being Thrawn sometimes,” Flim said.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“He’s my greatest character,” Flim said grumpily, “and I want to do it for an audience who really appreciates it. For someone who was Thrawn’s right-hand man and understands the amount of effort I have put into the slightest details--”

“No one,” Pellaeon said fervently, “appreciates your Thrawn as much as I do.”


End file.
